eCall tour for Heavy Goods Vehicles ends in Czech Republic

The I_HeERO promotional tour across Europe ended last week, having presented the road safety benefits of eCall automated emergency calls in incidents involving trucks and buses.

Throughout October 2017 the eCall for Heavy Goods Vehicles Demo Tour stopped in four European cities to demonstrate the potential of eCall to save lives following traffic incidents involving heavy goods vehicles, buses and coaches.

Kicking off in Turin, Italy on 10th October 2017, the Demo Tour travelled to Ljubljana, Slovenia on 16th October; Athens, Greece on 24 October; and reached its final destination in Ostrava, Czech Republic on 30 October 2017.

The last leg of the tour included the eCall for Heavy Goods Vehicles conference, held in Dolní Vítkovice in Ostrava on 30-31 October, and hosted jointly by Vitkovice IT Solutions a.s., ERTICO – ITS Europe, the Ministry of Transport and the Fire Service of the Czech Republic, and Tatra Truck a.s.

The official opening of the conference was delivered by Olga Sehnalová, Member of the European Parliament; and Tomáš Macura, Mayor of Ostrava.

Participants were presented with the final results of the I_HeERO project, co-funded by the European Interconnection Facility (CEF), focusing on the further development of eCall for road freight vehicles, in particular for vehicles transporting dangerous goods under the ADR agreement (European Agreement concerning the International Carriage of Dangerous Goods by Road).

The conference was held in two core blocks where the results of the international partners were presented. Speakers and participants also raised a number of issues for the further development and upgrading of the eCall system, which will have to be resolved in the future.

The Czech consortium of implementers under the leadership of the Ministry of Transport of the Czech Republic presented their proposed concept for an eCall for Heavy Goods Vehicles: a driver’s tablet using the specialized H-Portal, which facilitates mutual communication between the truck driver, the carrier’s dispatch centre and Integrated Rescue Services. This solution should ensure that emergency services are notified of an accident within 15 seconds, including full information on the truck’s dangerous cargo; with full cross-border functionality within the European Union.

The event featured a live simulated traffic accident involving two trucks: a Tatra Phoenix President and a three-chamber tank trailer Scania carrying dangerous cargo. As part of the simulation, one of the truck drivers triggered an eCall using the Driver’s Tablet for Heavy Goods Vehicles.

The conference was attended by a total of 160 participants from the Czech Republic and abroad. A total of 16 contributions were presented at the conference. Among the participants there were also several journalists from both national and regional media representatives.